government

Analyzing smart cities and big data in 3D: A Geo3D journey at SmartHub

January 2, 2020

The rise of densely populated, highly built-up smart cities around the globe has stretched the capabilities of current 2D visualization techniques. With the advent of drones, IoT devices, and indoor geolocation, next-gen 3D visualizations are beginning to address this challenge. Victor Chua explores how SmartHub is gearing up for a 3D future to support cutting-edge data analytics.

Open Budgets India: Lessons from the front line

December 30, 2019

Most of the Indias budget documents arent easily accessible. Those published online are mostly available as unstructured PDFs, making it difficult to search, analyze, and use this crucial data. Gaurav Godhwani discusses the process of creating Open Budgets India and making Indias budgets open, usable, and easy to comprehend.

Nudge theory: Influencing empowered teams to do the things that matter to you

December 21, 2019

Successful DevOps means empowering teams. But you still have things you want all teams to do, and you need to balance the benefits of the right technologies against the costs of running multiple data stores, deployment platforms, languages, etc. Sarah Wells offers a brief overview of nudge theory and explores its possibilities for influencing disparate teams to do things for the common good.

Bots that fight bureaucracy

December 20, 2019

Bots are able to automate human tasks for which there aren't APIslike contesting a parking ticket or applying for homeless assistance. Joshua Browder's DoNotPay bots have sliced through various bureaucracies since late 2015, vastly reducing the effort required to interact with government agencies.

Data case studies

December 14, 2019

The road to a data-driven business is paved with hard-won lessons, painful mistakes, and clever insights. We're introducing a new Tutorial Day track packed with case studies, where you can hear from practitioners across a wide range of industries.

Lessons learned running Hadoop and Spark in Docker

December 11, 2019

Many initiatives for running applications inside containers have been scoped to run on a single host. Using Docker containers for large-scale environments poses new challenges, especially for big data applications like Hadoop. Thomas Phelan shares lessons learned and some tips and tricks on how to Dockerize your big data applications in a reliable, scalable, and high-performance environment.

Only humans need apply: Adding value to the work of very smart machines

December 5, 2019

The automation of decisions and actions now threatens even knowledge-worker jobs. Tom Davenport describes both the threat of automation and the promise of augmentationcombining smart machines with smart peopleand explores five roles that individuals can adopt to add value to AI, as well as what these roles mean for businesses.

Attack trees: Security modeling for Agile teams

December 3, 2019

Traditional security approaches to threat and risk management are highly optimized to work within a traditional software development lifecycle. Michael Brunton-Spall shares a new approach to reviewing systems along with real-life examples to help you prioritize where to focus security efforts and what sorts of security threats you should worry about.

Lessons learned migrating HealthCare.gov to Terraform

December 1, 2019

Christian Monaghan explains how he and his team successfully migrated HealthCare.gov, America's largest government website, to the cloud infrastructure provisioning tool Terraform, shares lessons learned along the way, and details how you can effectively use Terraform for your next project.

Building an open platform for government innovation

November 27, 2019

There's a software culture revolution inside the government. User-centric design, lean, and agile are first citizens, but the increased velocity in development and testing requires a change in the way the government does deployment, security, and compliance. Diego Lapiduz shows how the cloud.gov team is building tools to achieve faster deployments and continuous compliance in a secure environment.

Bringing big data and design to policy making

November 19, 2019

Cat Drew explains how the UK's Policy Lab and GDS data teams are bringing more of a data, digital, and design approach to policy making, showcasing some of the Policy Lab projects that have used ethnography and data science to create fresh insight to change the way we think about policy problems.

What does your smart car know about you?

November 16, 2019

In the last few years, auto makers and others have introduced devices to connect cars to the Internet and gather data about the vehicles activity, and auto insurers and local governments are just starting to require these devices. Charles Givre gives an overview of the security risks as well as the potential privacy invasions associated with this unique type of data collection.

Crossing the river by feeling the stones

November 13, 2019

Deng Xiaoping once described managing the economy as crossing the river by feeling the stones. But in a world of constant change, how do you determine the right thing to do? Which pebble to tread on? Simon Wardley explains how situational awareness applies to the world of open source and explores how you can map your environment, identify opportunities to exploit, and learn to play the game.

DevOps at large: Modernizing apps and infrastructure in the federal government

November 13, 2019

The DevOps movement has changed the way that businesses handle the development, deployment, and operations of their systems. Like so many other advances in technology, however, this evolution is coming to government last. Aidan Feldman discusses the challenges of introducing modern processes and infrastructure at the federal level and looks at specific ways that 18F is tackling this problem.

Storming the castle: Open source challenges in government

November 5, 2019

Working for the government presents two major hurdles in open source development: getting your hands on open source developed libraries and finding ways to contribute to open source development in the workplace. Kathy Lee and Morgan Senkal discuss these challenges and offer possible solutions.

The architect as coach

October 29, 2019

As every organization becomes a software organization, senior leaders with no technology background regularly have to make technology decisions. To help their teams succeed, architects must learn to coach those leaders in how to deliver and operate high-quality services. James Stewart covers a range of techniques that help develop understanding and capability among senior leadership.

Elegant tools: Why B2B and enterprise design is the next frontier of design impact

October 11, 2019

Margaret Stewart imparts four key principles for designing quality business products and explains why designing elegant tools may be the highest-impact opportunity that exists for designers today.

Redesign government: A conversation between Tim O'Reilly and Mike Bracken

October 10, 2019

Details to come.

UX for security: Perils of surveillance, pain of dashboards, and power of design

October 10, 2019

User experience designers have an extraordinary opportunity to empower people to take control of their privacy. Ame Elliott shares examples of design for secure experiences and illustrates how UX can make systems more secure by addressing human behavior. Examples are applicable to a range of areas, including personal communication, business transactions, and government and nonprofit projects.